Monthly Archive for January, 2006

Any questions for Bradley Horowitz of Yahoo?

Published
by
Tom Raftery
on 16/1/2006
in Technology
. 1 Comment

I am interviewing Bradley Horowitz, director of technology development for Yahoo’s search group tomorrow for a podcast on PodLeaders.com - any questions you may have feel free to leave them here in the comments and I will be sure to ask them.

Any questions for Chris Messina?

Published
by
Tom Raftery
on 16/1/2006
in Interviews
. 5 Comments

Chris Messina is Director of Experience and Open Source Ambassador at Flock.

I will be interviewing Chris later this week for PodLeaders.com - the obvious first question I have for him is who dreamt up his job title?!

If you have any questions for Chris, feel free to leave them here in the comments and I’ll be sure to ask him.

Wiki recommendations

Published
by
Tom Raftery
on 15/1/2006
in Personal
. 11 Comments

I have a project coming up which will require the installation of a Wiki on the client’s server (a shared LAMP server). The project is pro-bono from my side as the client doesn’t have a budget and works in the area of special education.

The project is to roll out a simple system to document the protocols and procedures to be followed by the staff so they are all using the same approach in their work.

The client’s organisation has a staff of about 70 working throughout the country. The staff are not technically literate so the wiki software needs to have a WYSIWYG editor.

I looked at Media Wiki but it doesn’t seem to have a WYSIWYG editor and I’m not clear if Moin Moin can be installed on a shared server.

Any/all advice greatfully accepted as always.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAhhhhhhhhhpple!

Published
by
Tom Raftery
on 12/1/2006
in Mac and Technology
. 2 Comments

Boy am I feeling sick today!

I buy a lovely sparkling new 2.1ghz iMac G5 just last November and yesterday Steve Jobs announces a new iMac running on Intel dual core chips which is 2-3 times faster?

AAAAAAAAAAAHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

But all is not rosy for the new apple announcements - Apple announced Photocasting - this is a new function, built-in to iPhoto which allows users to publish a photo set and allow people to subscribe to the photo set using their RSS reader so they will always see the most up-to-date pics (think grandparents and pics of grandkids, for example) - all sounds nice but Dave Winer took Apple to task straight after for not properly coding the RSS for phtotcasting and so it doesn’t work in all RSS readers.

The new laptops which were announced - the MacBook Pro (who dreamt up such a Godawful name?) - may not be as fast as Steve Jobs maintains as Unsanity points out. Also, they are missing the Firewire 800 post, the S-video output and they have a lower screen resolution!

The last thing which annoyed me about the announcements was the fact that the new blogging and podcasting elements of GarageBand and iWeb appear to require users to have a .Mac account. I don’t have a .Mac account. Nor do I want one. I don’t see a compelling need for one. Now it looks like Steve jobs and Apple are trying to get an extra $99 per annum from people who want to blog or podcast using Apple’s products. Hopefully I’m wrong and the new version of GarageBand will allow saving to mp3 or another format which can be converted to mp3 ‘cos the sound editing functions in the demo looked awsome!

I’m not bitter. Honest!

Back in the seat again

Published
by
Tom Raftery
on 10/1/2006
in Mac and Personal
. 3 Comments

I’m back at the computer again and furiously making my way through the backlog of email which built up in my absence. If you sent me an email in the last week or two and I haven’t responded, please re-send it just to poke me!

The break was great and Santa was very generous - he gave me the fabulous digital SLR camera iIhave been lusting after for so long (I must have been a really good boy!). I’ll have to start playing with my dormant Flickr account now. Or maybe if Riya get their Mac support together (they say they are working on an iPhoto uploader now), I might try them out.

In the meantime, I must keep an eye on the MacWorld Expo which kicks off today - I’m looking forward to seeing what Steve Jobs (the consummate CEO showman) has in store. As usual, the rumour mill is buzzing with what is expected to be announced (new Intel based laptops, new version of iLife, new iPod Shuffle, etc.) - no doubt Stevie will pull a few surprises though as he has done every ime before.

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